


i'll never settle for less than love, less than you, less than us

by everqueen



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, kravitz and taako have both been through Some Shit, short and sweet for my friendo crinds, they try and heal together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 10:19:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16239629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everqueen/pseuds/everqueen
Summary: Taako and Kravitz face their respective demonsalso involving fantasy Froot Loops(title from "Lightbeam" by Gina Chavez)





	i'll never settle for less than love, less than you, less than us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notcrindy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcrindy/gifts).



“You gotta at least try it once, bone man,” Taako says, tugging Kravitz out onto the sand, his board tucked semi-securely under one arm. The day is hot and glorious, with just the right touch of a salt sea breeze brushing across their faces to ease the heat. Merle arranged for the whole family to meet up at Chesney’s, but that comes later. Now, the whole fam is out in full force, spreading out over the beach in delight. Magnus is sprinting around with his dogs and Mookie, alternately throwing driftwood and stones for them to fetch or jumping up to catch them himself. Lup and Barry are slightly more sensible, with their matching floppy sun hats and Lup’s decidedly non-magical umbrella. They’re setting up the bigger umbrellas and beach chairs with Lucretia, while Davenport, at the shoreline, attempts to dissuade Merle from recreating his beach year gifts. Mavis and Angus are excitedly comparing some nerd shit, probably the latest Caleb Cleveland novel, while Ren watches with mild concern as  Killian deadlifts Carey, just because she can.

Kravitz meanwhile is eyeing the water doubtfully, cooler hand warmed by both the sun and Taako’s fingers, and maybe even his newly beating heart. He’s dressed casually for Kravitz, in swimming shorts and a lightweight shirt, in a pastel blue in deference to the heat. Taako admires the view because he can, and because it’s a beautiful view: Kravitz has an eye for color, for all he favors black, and his dark skin means that everything pops, from his pastel shirt to his gold-framed sunglasses.

“I don’t know, Taako,” he says, glancing down as Taako nudges him until he kicks off his flip flops. “It’s been…. a long time since I swam.”

“Yeah, but you got me,” Taako says, tapping at his board. Much like the original from the beach year, this is emblazoned with flames, twisting gold, red, and blue spouting all over the surface. He grins at his husband. “I invented surfing, you know.”

Kravitz smiles, bringing Taako’s hand up to his lips and kissing it gently. “I heard.”

“Gross,” Merle yells from the waterline, ignoring the fact that his soulwood hand is entwined with Davenport’s, in a probably vain effort to keep the dwarf from crafting kelp shoes or something.

“Shut up, old man!” Taako yells back. He pulls Kravitz to the water, dropping his hand to tie up his hair in a quick bun. He splashes into the water, yelping at how cold it is, and sweeps a huge wave at Kravitz when he hesitates. His husband shrieks and jumps back, tripping over Mookie running past and falling unceremoniously on his ass.

“Alright,” he grumbles, waving off Magnus’s outstretched hand and brushing vainly at the sand coating most of his body. He glares at the sea as if this was the one that personally wronged him and plunges in, jumping directly onto Taako. The elf shrieks with laughter and fake betrayal as he goes under, twisting under Kravitz and popping up with a gasp, shaking salt water out of his eyes.

“Betrayed by my own husband!” he says dramatically, flopping on Kravitz. “How could you?!”

Kravitz laughs and catches him, resolutely pushing away the lurking memories of darkness, shot through with reds and blues and greens and yellows, sucking him down, down, down. “I believe you were going to show me surfing?” he asks teasingly.

“Hell yeah!” Taako says, yanking his board to them with a casual Mage Hand. “Hey, Lulu?”

“Yeah babe?” his sister hollers from the shore.

“Where are the waves?”

“Give it a few, pal,” Davenport calls. “They’re gonna get started any second now.”

The captain is right. The swells grow, curling into waves that Taako can feasibly surf. He winks exaggeratedly at his husband and paddles out on his board, watching the waves as they come. The memory clear as day once again, he swings up as the wave grows, ready to ride it all the way in to shore.

He promptly eats shit.

He surfaces with a surprised snort, shaking water off, as Kravitz paddles towards him in concern and the rest of his family cackles with laughter from the shoreline.

“Taako!” Kravitz says, reaching him. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Taako mutters, patting his arm absently as he summons his board back. “Let me try again.”

He tries again, and gets a few feet onto the wave until he sways and loses his balance, tumbling into the water with a splash. He pops up with a fierce frown, forestalling Kravitz’s questions with a hand and trying again.

And again.

He’s at it for well over an hour before Lup calls them in for the cookout, and not once does Taako manage to successfully catch a wave for more than about ten seconds before he falls. He ignores Kravitz's attempts to ask him about it, waving them off with a fake grin, a glamour, and a joke at Merke’s expense, which the dwarf yelps at.

He continues to ignore it, laughing with Lup over Barry somehow getting sunburned under four applications of fantasy sunscreen, a shirt, and an umbrella, making bets on just how many hot dogs Magnus can eat, and teasing Angus until the boy detective levitates an entire cooler’s worth of ice down Taako’s shirt.

He still doesn’t address it as they make their way home, drunk from a few too many drinks at Chesney’s, Kravitz carrying a sleeping Angus up the stairs to his room. He returns to their bedroom, watching idly as Taako dresses for bed.

“Hey, love?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you… alright?”

“Huh? Oh, sure, thug. No problems at casa de Taako.”

“Today at the beach--”

“Cha’boy is kinda tired tho,” Taako interrupts, nestling down in the multitude of blankets on their bed and making grabby hands at Kravitz. “C’mon bones, don’t leave me hanging.”

Kravitz sighs and curls up with Taako, kissing his neck gently. “Alright,” he says. “We’ll leave it for now.”

Taako’s either already asleep or very good at feigning it, lilting snores drifting up as he burrows deeper into Kravitz’s arms. The reaper sighs again, looking down with fond exasperation, and drifts off to sleep himself.

*

He awakens to an empty bed.

“Taako?”

Silence. He glances over at the clock: 3:13am. He pushes down a spark of worry, climbing out of bed and listening intently to the sounds of the house. There’s little, just the usual creaking and occasional barks from neighborhood dogs and sleepy purring from the cats piled all over their bed. He pads to the stairs, hearing quiet clinking from the kitchen below.

He carefully descends, hand tight on the railing, and enters the dark kitchen. It takes him a moment - no dark vision, after all -  to find the light switch, but when he does, the light reveals his husband, sitting curled up on the floor, knees to his chest, with a bowl of fantasy Froot Lups.

“Taako?”

“They were always Lup’s favorite,” Taako says, waving the bowl. “Same name, sorta. Not that we could ever afford em, but we stole or bargained for em when we could.” he smiles without humor or joy. “Now we always have at least one box in the cupboard. Got the gold to burn.”

Kravitz sits next to Taako carefully and Taako flicks off the light with a casual Mage Hand, plunging them into darkness again. Kravitz shifts until their sides are touching, pressing against the warmth of his husband. They don’t talk for a while.

“Figured it out,” Taako says finally, when Kravitz hears the bowl tap to the ground on Taako’s other side.

“What?”

“You know what.” Taako snorts. “That bullshit at the beach.”

“Oh. I thought you just might be out of practice?”

“Nah, nah nah nah,” Taako says, and Kravitz can feel Taako’s hair brush against his arm as he shakes his head. “Nah, homie, I got muscle memory. Nah, it was Wonderland.”

Kravitz catches his breath, thrust back for a moment to choking black ooze and silence, struggling and drowning while his goddess was blocked from him. He knows what Taako went through in Wonderland, having been told in fits and starts by Taako and Lup at various times, through late night tears when huddled together after a nightmare, casually tossed over Taako’s shoulder when stress baking, mentioned offhand by Barry and Lup on a mission.

It was a pretty bad day all around.

“My, uh, my dex,” Taako explains, his warm hand pressing on Kravitz’s shoulder, a comforting weight. “Shot my dexterity to hell. Used to be a regular flip wizard, but now,” Kravitz feels him shrug. “It’s whatever, I guess.”

Kravitz leans his head against Taako’s, anger swelling up anew at how much he lost to those liches. If there had been anything left of their souls, Kravitz would have made sure they could never hurt anyone ever again, but even that satisfaction was denied them. He doesn’t know what to say, precisely, so he settles for physical contact.

They sit like that for a while, kitchen dark and still around them, and silently Taako pours himself another bowl of fantasy Froot Loops, sans milk. He offers the bowl to Kravitz, nudging it into his arm until Kravitz realizes what he’s doing and takes some.

“Taako, you know I love you, right?”

His husband scoffs, fluttering his left hand against Kravitz’s face. “Of course, thug. I have the proof right here.”

“Then you know I say this with love, but these are among the most disgusting things I’ve ever eaten on a kitchen floor at 3am.”

Taako shrieks, batting at him as Kravitz laughs. “Heresy! Blasphemy! How  _ dare _ you!”

“You know I’m right.”

“No!”

“I’m right and I will say it.”

Taako sticks his tongue out and holds the bowl away from him. “See if I offer you any ever again.”

“Oh no,” Kravitz says in the driest voice he can manage. “Whatever will I do.”

“Alright, kemosabe,” Taako says. “What do  _ you _ suggest?”

“You’re a chef, why don’t you make a gourmet version of them?”

“ _ Well _ ,” Taako says, eyes gleaming as he turns to Kravitz and they catch the moonlight pooling through the glass of the fantasy French doors. “I sense a challenge.”

“Perhaps not at…” Kravitz checks the time. “4am?”

“Nope, we’re doing it now,” Taako says. He makes to rise to his feet but stumbles, cursing the loss of his dexterity all over again, until Kravitz pulls himself up on Taako and distracts him with a kiss, stealing the bowl of fantasy Froot Loops as he does.

“Ugh,” he says as Taako flips the lights on. “You’re supposed to be a chef.”

“Rude,” Taako says, grabbing for it. Kravitz holds it away with a grin and this leads to Taako chasing him around the kitchen, both of them laughing. Kravitz is taller, but Taako is much more willing to burn spell slots, so they’re at a bit of an impasse.

“Sirs?” a sleepy voice asks, and Taako looks up from where he’s commanding a small army of conjured mongooses to attack Kravitz, who is balanced precariously on top of the fridge. Angus is standing in the doorway, rubbing his eyes with the hand not holding most of a cat.

“Heyn Ango, great timing,” Taako says. “Help me take down your other dad and get my fantasy Froot Loops back.”

Angus instead elects to perch on one of the stools, Prince Bastard in his arms, watching the impromptu war. Kravitz has the high ground, which he proclaims loudly and often, insisting Taako give up, while Taako sends wave after wave of mongooses swarming towards the fridge. Angus gradually collects the rest of their half dozen cats, furry and skeletal and ghost, until Kravitz, staring down at his husband, dumps the rest of the fantasy Froot Loops into his mouth. Taako shrieks in betrayal as Kravitz chokes them down.

“There,” he says, gasping dramatically. “Now you owe me a gourmet version.”

“Sounds good to me, sir,” Angus says from where he’s eating the rest of the fantasy Froot Loops directly out of the box.

“Oh shit, the box was right there the whole time.”

Angus shrugs.

“Well, alright,” Taako says, clapping his hands together. “Let’s get to it.”

“Uh, Taako?” Kravitz says from the fridge. “Can you call off the mongooses?”

Taako turns on his heel, an evil glint in his eye. “Nope.”

“Taako!”

“You stay up there and think about your sins,” Taako says, fist bumping Angus. “While  _ we _ get started on these  _ gourmet _ fantasy Froot Loops.”

“Love, please!” As Taako pointedly turns his back, Kravitz looks to Angus. “Ango, help your favorite undead friend out?”

“Barry isn’t here, sir.”

Taako shrieks with laughter as Kravitz gasps and mimes a death scene atop the fridge and Angus grins. They stay like that, the three of them, Kravitz calling suggestions down as Taako mixes and tests and flavors, doing his best to keep cat hair away while Angus approves or vetoes their best guesses.

“And hey,” Taako says when they’re all on the couch, snacking on gourmet fantasy Froot Loops, Taako having deigned to call off the conjured mongooses menacing his husband. “Not too shabby for a night’s work, huh boys?”

Kravitz and Angus agree, emphatically, and they all enjoy spending the rest of the morning snacking and conjuring light for the cats to chase.

It doesn’t fix what Taako or any of them lost.

But they’re still happy, and they’re together.

Gourmet fantasy Froot Loops and all.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> crindy ily and i hope this works for that sweet sweet taakitz h/c
> 
> comments?? and kudos??? you know i love em
> 
> thanks i love you bye!


End file.
